Your boss pokes his head in your office. “Bill, at the next board meeting, a week after Thursday, you’ve got a seven-minute spot to explain your project.” Bill’s fingers instinctively clench the desk. Much to his dread, he is being called to publicly speak about the creation over which he’s been laboring so passionately these long months. But it gets worse. Before he can stammer out a reply, the boss leans in further on the doorway, “And Jonesey, please, if you value your career and our board’s sanity, no PowerPoint. Just get up and tell us spontaneously. It’ll be fun.”
“Fun? Hell,” Bill thinks to himself. “I am being called to judgment before 60 critical superiors who will be scrutinizing everything from my fly to my grammar. Lord, I’ll never get through this.” Jonesey’s response is common. In its list of prevalent fears, David Wallace’s original “The Book of Lists” places public speaking right at the top, alongside death, divorce, and dentistry.
Eileen Sinett, Biz4NJ Expert on Individual Communications, has been called a speech psychologist. In her firm, Comprehensive Communication Services, she trains CEO’s and professionals to make presentations, from the ground up. Long before discussing where to put the hands, or how to shape the vowels, Sinett first delves into the speaker’s psyche. It’s all part of her Thinking - Doing - Being Presentation Process. “You want to peel back to the real you - the comfortable you - and let that person connect with your audience,” Sinett says. This takes a few deep breaths, several questions, and a little soul searching to gear up for the act of speech creation.
* Eliminate the Negative. “Public speaking represents your right to have a voice in your world,” says Sinett. “I’m not talking politically, but rather of that deep, personal judgment we make of ourselves on whether we are worthy to be heard.” Those fortunate few who deem themselves innately worthy and overwhelmingly qualified to address the globe, may skip this section and move on to the the next. But alas, the majority do not believe themselves so.
Absolute, petrifying panic mode is the first response for 10 percent of Sinett’s trainees when called upon to speak publicly. A few clients have swallowed handfuls of beta blockers to get through a simple two-minute announcement. (Not a recommended method.) Other very competent executives literally tremble with apprehension three weeks prior and two weeks after their minutes at the podium.
Some of this may go back to demons planted very early on. It might be the father who shouted the frequent mantra at the child “Don’t ever talk about that in my house.” One speaker had been terrorized as a youngster by a mugger who all the while held his hand over the child’s mouth. Sometimes it’s a less dramatic eroding of esteem conducted over time by parents, siblings, and peers.
Usually a little realization, some counsel, and a few meditation exercises can help overcome this basic and often immense first hurdle. But that alone does not place one in cerebral Shangri-La.
* Accentuate the positive. Our Bill Jones is justified in one fear: he is very much on trial. He, himself, alone is being called upon to sparkle and shine, or crash and burn before the people who can dictate his career. They care about what he says, but they will place equal judgment on how he says it. Let’s be honest, Bill is an executive. He is entrusted with the leadership of others. Will a company’s directors set on the fast track some marvelous expert who mumbles around and cannot succinctly communicate to his team? Yes Bill, this is a defining moment.
“What never ceases to amaze me is the number of people who completely fail to see the opportunity that making a presentation offers,” says Sinett. Many coaches try to lecture the reluctant executive on how a command speaking performance silver platters them a captive audience all wanting him to succeed. They wax glowingly on the presentation as a unique opportunity to bring one’s persona, one’s abilities, and one’s actual creation to light. It is all true, and typically falls on deaf ears, smothered by a blanket of dread.
Instead, Sinett leads clients to these conclusions with a series of questions. Logic this thing out: why did they select you to make the presentation? Probably because they had confidence in you as team leader or competent member. They believe in you, or they wouldn’t have asked. Slowly the speaker realizes his credibility. Secondly, who is this group and what are they like? In the case of Bill Jones' board, and most business audiences, they are busy people, looking for something valuable to glean from the talk. They are also ordinary people who get bored at the same things you do. (Are you enthralled by 40 PowerPoint slides, in a dark room, acting as a teleprompter for a droning, unseen speaker?) Realization #2: these are people, like me, seeking to connect with me personally, and learn about me.
The third question leads toward this personal connection. Why did the group call for this presentation, and what’s in it for them? Granted, a secondary answer is that the audience does want to test your communication mettle and get to know you. But the primary reason you have been called to the podium is to give the listeners some news they can use. Understanding that you have something to share which they want, helps you approach the individuals in front of you more personally. Also, it naturally funnels your thoughts onto the next great hurdle: what to say.
* On Toward Content. Listeners are sacrificing pieces of their busy lives to get your information. “So, what primary nugget or lesson do you want them to carry away,” Sinett asks? Here’s a few hints: avoid the patter of little feats. If you have built a really great piece of software, no one cares to know your entire, marvelously clever creation process. Even if you are explaining this new software to the salesforce, forget rambling on about the product’s wonders. Give them what they want: three solid features that set it above the competition.
If the whole project has crashed, find the lesson your team has learned and pass it on. A refreshingly honest revelation about where missteps were made, and the restructuring that has taken place to meet your new projections may not be what they expected to hear, but it’s useable news. This can turn into a plus. Listeners now see you as a “solution-person.” They’ve learned about your department, and they are taking away a solution perhaps applicable to themselves. They have learned from you.
“If you just take this key message you want to get across, bolster it up with three buckets of supporting facts - three subcategories - you’ll have your speech outlined,” says Sinett.
As a final advisory in mental preparation, Sinett tells her clients to come out of your closet and be authentic. Step away from the role of your rank, e.g. “this is the vice president speaking.” Avoid trying to wow audiences with your immense intellect e.g. “believe me because I am very knowledgeable.” Both approaches loose appeal and effect. Rather, come out as just you, “This is Bill speaking.” Let them see your passion, your emotions, and all your full self that links you with with the people on the floor in front. That’s the best selling point there is. After all, it’s just a bunch of folks doing what humans have always done - sitting around, talking, and listening. B4
Eileen Sinett has been coaching corporate leaders to speak long before the business community saw it as a necessity. The eldest of seven children, Sinett grew up as the daughter of an ever-inventive and successful entrepreneur. “Trucks were always in the driveway from his trucking firm, or canteens and camping gear in the garage from his Army surplus business. My father always had some new business starting up,” Sinett recalls.
Leaving this stimulating home environment, Sinett attended Emerson College, earning a bachelor’s in speech pathology and audiology, followed by a masters in speech correction from Kean College. This clinical background led her to work first at Roosevelt Hospital, then the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. She soon became UMDNJ’s director of communication services, training a staff of pathology students.
In 1979, Sinett left to found Comprehensive Communication Services. “Originally, my first clients were parochial school parents, interested in their children’s elocution, and those with speech disabilities. But somewhere in the early 1980’s business people began coming in,” she says. At first, they wanted to loose accents or just speak grammatically. Then it was if the whole business world awoke to the advantage of effective communication. Today, Sinett mentors executives and teams from such clients as Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Company, Novo Nordisk, Mathematica Policy Research, as well as several politicians and professionals.
